https://youtu.be/hZrsB943_bc
A lost-to-time FMV game is getting a second life with Ziggurat Interactive‘s release of American Hero, the previously unfinished Atari Jaguar title featuring sleazy dives, lovely ladies, a brain-washing villain, and Golden Globe Award nominee Timothy Bottoms as the lead. The game will release on multiple digital platforms this summer, as well as a physical release through Limited Run Games. Ziggurat has worked with Empty Clip Studios to re-engineer the game from the ground up, including Bottoms’ return to his starring role with all-new voiceover recordings to complete the original script.
“With American Hero, we sought to balance conservation of the project’s original vision with editorial restoration wherever game assets were incomplete,” said Matt Shores, CEO of Empty Clip Studios. “We feel that this was the best approach to resurrect the game and allow players a chance to experience a title that was never released to the public.”
Written in the 1990s, American Hero is a satire of over-the-top 80’s action films which has itself aged into a caricature of 90’s cinema. This ‘playable movie’ features the talents of professional actors, including Bottoms (The Last Picture Show, Elephant), Daniel Roebuck (The Fugitive, Final Destination), and Musetta Vander (O Brother, Where Art Thou, Wild Wild West). Players take on the role of Jack, an American intelligence officer on a mission to stop virologist Krueger before he can unleash a virus into the Los Angeles water supply. Players will face spur-of-the-moment decisions that will help or hinder Jack as he tries to protect the only scientist who has the cure for this deadly pathogen.
“American Hero is a buried treasure from the Atari archives that was nearly lost to time after the Jaguar CD’s abrupt end,” said Michael Devine, SVP of Business Development at Ziggurat Interactive. “To be in a position to restore and complete this game, and preserve a unique part of video game history is exactly what Ziggurat is all about.”
Features of American Hero Include:
- A fully realized Hollywood-level script with player directed plot and dialogue choices
- A gritty, adult-oriented action story with violence and sex appeal
- A unique, virtually seamless FMV format that plays smoothly like watching a film
- The return of Hollywood actor Timothy Bottoms as Jack with newly recorded voiceover
